Crash and Burn
by Duchess Winna
Summary: Twenty facts about Sarah Rees-Toome, ranging over the course of her life. Complete.


**Disclaimer: These characters belong to Libba Bray, not to me.**

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i.

She always envied Mary for possessing the ability to be content with life without power. She always secretly wanted that, the simple enjoyment of life itself, and sometimes thought that perhaps it was another, maybe even a surer, pathway to happiness than the one she was taking.

ii.

It was always hard for her to sacrifice something. She would get over her initial distaste, of course, for certain things had to be done, unpleasant or not, but it wasn't something that came naturally to her.

iii.

Lying was something that always came naturally to her. She remembered the first time it ever happened: she was five or six, and she had tried on her mother's new necklace and hidden it away. Her mother asked her whether or not she had taken it, and she shook her head smoothly, her face the picture of childlike innocence.

iv.

When she was trapped in the well, she saw herself as similar to the Lady of Shalott, for the first time. Both suffered, cursed, unable to break free, although the circumstances were, admittedly, different. But she most poignantly felt the helplessness the poem reflected. _A curse is on her if she stays_. And so when Gemma came to her, she made a choice just as the Lady of Shalott did, to take her chance and leave her tower, even if it would result in her death.

v.

Every time she spoke to Gemma, with every word she uttered, she was aware that eventually Gemma would find out the truth and really despise her. And oddly, the thought hurt her.

Because she saw in Gemma all the yearning, the rebelliousness, the spirit she had possessed at her age and also the trust in her friends (among which she was included now) that the girl, despite all she had encountered, still had in such abundance. And she really didn't want to see the truth work its way over her face, changing into horror, after she realized who Miss Moore really was.

vi.

She really did feel terrible for Pippa when she learned the girl was to marry Mr. Bumble. It was times like these when she wished she had magic for a benevolent reason: to change the world for good, so that girls like Pippa wouldn't have to marry men like Mr. Bumble for the advancement of their families, a world where even girls not favored by fate could have happy lives.

vii.

Her first ambition was to be queen of England, though she didn't have the details figured out then about how she would attain that goal. She never really lost the desire to sit on that throne and wear the crown jewels.

viii.

The only victim that ever haunted her nightmares was Carolina, probably because she was the first, but also because she reminded her of Mary's betrayal and her own fall from power, when it was so close to being wielded by her.

But there was a little something in the girl's eyes, a pure, unadulterated innocence that she never saw again in her life, that clung to her.

ix.

Although by all rights the character she should have sympathized with in Paradise Lost was Lucifer, she actually felt sorrier for Adam, who had lived in paradise, known perfection, basked in it, before having it taken from him. She thought the loss of paradise would have been worse than never reaching it in the first place.

x.

Despite her disregard for Eugenia Spence, sometimes (albeit not very often) she would find it incredibly touching that a woman powerful in her own right would sacrifice herself for a traitor, a murderess.

Years later, she would feel it all again, with a different woman who was infinitely wiser than Eugenia, despite her young age.

xi.

Once, when she taught at Spence, she saw two little girls walking, arms linked, laughing, and these girls by some cruel trick of fate had the same laugh as hers and Mary's, combined. It made her stop abruptly and turn around, unable to bear even to look at them.

She wondered if their friendship, too, would crash and burn.

xii.

She wanted to gain control of the Realms for many reasons – ambition being the chief one, naturally – but part of it was to prove Mary wrong. She wanted to demonstrate that she would triumph, and that Mary, wherever she was, would regret not joining her.

xiii.

Despite threatening Brigid once, she actually thought that the maid was one of the best employees at Spence.

xiv.

The best times would be when, just for a moment, she would forget. Inhale the flowery spring scent, feel the cool wind caress her hair, and for a second forget that this world of light was not meant for her, not any longer.

She would have to remind herself then that it was her own choice that condemned her to this action, to avoid self-pity.

xv.

She read Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, when she was a girl, and back then she thought that Victor, the monster's creator, was one of the worst, most pathetic characters she'd encountered in literature; all he could do was regret, regret, regret.

She made a vow never to be like that. She would go through life, and she might make mistakes, but she would be proud of them and hold her head high.

xvi.

When she was younger, she never would have pictured herself becoming a teacher, and especially not at Spence. She thought she didn't have the patience for it, the drive. There was no desire in her to impart knowledge to others, not really. And when she became a teacher, it wasn't out of a selfless desire to educate.

But once she'd started, she began to like it a little.

xvii.

She never cried after she made the sacrifice. Not when she learned of her parents' deaths when she was in hiding, not when she killed some of her students as sacrifices. She had sealed herself shut from feeling such emotion that would only hurt her and make her question the path she was taking.

xviii.

_Forever_, Mary had said once. That they would be friends forever and never break that friendship, never turn against each other over petty things like men or a borrowed glove or other foolish things that other girls argued over. They would be true friends and sisters forever, through marriage and childbirth and everything else that life had to offer.

Fool that she was, Sarah had believed it.

xix.

There was a man, once, and she didn't even remember his name. He was a magician and she was lonely, so lonely, filled only with darkness and hatred and ambition. She thought that maybe this would fill her up with the things she had lost along with her identity in the fire, so she took him in her arms and kissed him hungrily, wildly, felt his hands caress her back. There was warmth, there was completion, there was satisfaction.

But there was still an emptiness, and she carried that all of her life.

xx.

As she boarded the boat that would carry her to a paradise she knew she didn't deserve, she realized that if she had ever had a daughter, Gemma would have been her.


End file.
